Lacking
by linzackles
Summary: A few months after their tryst in the forest, a humanity-less Caroline goes to New Orleans to torture Klaus. In the process of finding out why, Klaus receives Caroline's real confession. A drabble first posted on Tumblr for Klaroline Vision Wednesday.


There is an episode of The Originals where Genevieve tortures Klaus and somebody on Tumblr made this really great AU manip where it was Caroline instead of Gen. I loved it since I have a thing for Evil Caroline and basically this is as a result of that.

I do not refer to much canon but I will warn that I do not watch The Originals at all (and that Hayley stans will not like this). Everything is canon-compliant up until 5x11. This occurs a few months after.

Enjoy :)

* * *

"Why are you letting me do this?" she asks.

Whether she's curious or teasing isn't clear but he answers anyway.

"I want to spend time with you," is his reply.

It's honest.

She could laugh aloud but she only cocks her head, smirking a little.

"Are you really that desperate?"

Desperate, yes. Why else would he, the Original Hybrid, allow himself to be strung up on one of his own torture contraptions, just to spend a few minutes with Caroline Forbes?

Definitely desperate.

He says nothing.

Her fingers prance over his shoulder. She never stops teasing. Torturing.

"What are you doing here?"

He wants to figure her out. Why come to him when he'd promised her that she could be free?

And like _this_.

That smirk again.

"If that isn't obvious then I'm not sure I can explain."

His eyes pierce into hers, already annoyed with this game.

"What could possibly have driven you to turn your humanity off?"

They've danced around it for a few minutes now, but the lacking behind her eyes is unmistakeable to him.

"What am I doing here," she repeats, lolling the words over her tongue like candy snaps.

"I turned it off. Wanted to see what it was like," she adds as if this is an explanation, when the mocking tilt of her mouth only emphasises the vaguery of it. "I remembered what a brat Elena was when she turned it off though, so I thought I'd come somewhere else."

"Or perhaps you wanted to come somewhere you couldn't hurt anyone," he suggests smugly.

She smiles back. It's tiny and sweet.

"Don't be so sure."

And sure enough, from her tote she pulls the one object in the world that can kill him.

"Where did you get that?" he asks with gritted teeth, eyes wide.

"Where you hid it," comes her simple reply. "Which, I'll admit, was a pretty good hiding spot, but then again you didn't expect the only person who really knows you to come looking for it, did you?"

He is still technically a voluntary hostage in this twisted game of hers but for the first time he is truly petrified.

There is something lacking behind her eyes.

She laughs and it is a crass kind of humour neither of them understands.

"Tell me, Klaus. Do you still like me like this? You know, without that _light_ you_ enjoy_ so much?"

It's a trick question and she enjoys the wait for him to step into her snare.

"I like you any way, Caroline."

He shifts.

If it's the right answer, she doesn't show it.

She runs the White Oak stake over his shirt.

"What am I saying? You probably like me _better _like this. Honest, unashamed. Don't you like that, Klaus?"

It's a sneer and now there is no possible correct answer.

"Honest about what?" he manages.

She wanted that question; he sees it in her smirk.

"About what I want, remember?"

She lets a girly little sigh escape her lips and even it is sardonic.

"Because I _did_ want you, Klaus. And not just for those few hours in the forest. Long before that."

Once that would have elicited some self-satisfied reaction from him.

His eyes are blank.

And misery loves company, doesn't it, because their eyes are drawn and lost in each other, so much so that he doesn't notice _her_ enter his house.

"Klaus, the next time you make me pick up your dry cleaning, you better – "

She stops dead, the wolf. "What the – "

In seconds Caroline has her head in her hands and he doesn't have the time to open his mouth before the crack resounds throughout the room.

The wolf drops to the floor, legs sprawled, her body curled in on itself.

"My ch– " Klaus starts but she slaps him.

Caroline hits him right across the face with the stake.

If she knows what he'd been about to say, she doesn't show it.

Lacking.

Her eyes flicker back to the dead body and she notices the bump.

"Huh, she was pregnant," she notes.

He waits for some flash of recognition, anything, but she only shrugs as she turns back to him.

"You're going to regret that when you get your humanity back."

Only it's more of a plea than a warning.

She shrugs again because nothing matters, does it?

It tires him.

Her game begins to tire him and there is that mood shift Niklaus Mikaelson is famous for.

"WHY DID YOU TURN IT OFF?" he bellows.

Nothing touches her.

She steps closer, leans in.

On the edge of his vision lies the body of the wolf, carrying his unborn spawn. It is grotesque and he could not care less. Not anymore. The child was a distraction, as was this city, as was Hayley, since the very beginning. A distraction till _she_ came to him.

His eyes don't move from his queen as she approaches.

Except… she is only ever his queen in his various daydreams.

There is no incarnation of Caroline Forbes that will ever agree to take that title.

They're breathing the same air, now.

She does it deliberately; he cannot focus when her scent invades his senses this way.

"You."

She is on the other side of the room in seconds, surveying him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The stilettoes of her thigh-high boots clip as she makes her way back to him. Slowly, torturously.

"Do you know what it's like to have this… voice in your head, saying the same thing over and over again?"

Caroline Forbes, Caroline Forbes, Caroline Forbes.

_Yes_.

"And you _scrub_, because that's what you do, you scrub. Every surface, every problem, every fold in your brain. But it _will not_ go away."

She stops dead.

"Words, memories. The ghost of something on your skin. You want it gone because you know you can never have it again. Because he _promised_."

Her eyes are accusing and he growls.

"You _asked _me to make that promise!"

"No," she says, and she's there in an instant, pressing a light fingertip to the creases that form between his brows.

"You made that promise to a girl who cared what others thought of her; who was so burdened by the weight of what her friends and society expected of her that she couldn't just accept what she _really_ needed."

A wry smile.

"That's not me. Not anymore."

Her words are a pleasant pit in his stomach.

"I'm confused, love. Do you want me or need me?"

She turns away, her blond tresses dangling as she paces.

"I don't _want _to _need _you."

The voice is so small that for a second he wonders if she's turned it back on.

But when she turns back, she's grinning.

"See, I knew you'd like honest Caroline," she gloats.

He despises this. She always had the upper hand; now she is taking it too far.

"Turn it back on," he commands lowly.

She snorts, folding her arms. "What, you really think I'm gonna do it just because it's _you_ asking?"

Another growl.

"You'll do it because I can compel you otherwise."

It's the first time he threatens her with that.

"You look scared," he notes. "Which means you've been off the vervain. Perhaps you _wanted_ me to compel your humanity back in case you couldn't find the will to do so yourself. Perhaps _that's_ why you came here."

She laughs again.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? Klaus Mikaelson, my only saviour."

He looks away because damnit, she knows how to hit him where it hurts.

Her eyes flick.

"Why are you still up there?"

He looks up at his binds then back toward the blonde.

"Because you're still holding that stake."

His answer angers her.

"I thought we were being honest here."

He grits his teeth, unable to admit the pathetic truth yet knowing it will become a reality if he doesn't.

"I don't want you to leave," he amends.

Satisfied, she's satisfied.

"I will," she taunts. "I _promise_."

A wink and his blood boils.

"Is that what this is all about? A bloody promise uttered in some backwards forest in desperation?"

"Yes!"

The first time she shouts.

"Because you left me behind in Mystic Falls to what? To dream about you and think about you and not be able to talk about you even though the best decision I ever made was _all _I wanted to talk about!"

The words wrench at his gut.

Her tone is defeated when she speaks up again, her head down as she avoids his eyes.

"Klaus, get off that damn thing."

He pulls the ropes to shreds, kicks over Hayley's body and is holding Caroline close within seconds.

He lifts her chin. She doesn't protest as he puts his lips to hers, pulls her in.

The kiss doesn't last long; he has other priorities.

"Caroline… turn it on, love."

He was right. She didn't know how she was going to find the will to turn it back on.

But it's not compulsion that makes her reach deep down to find that inner switch.

His eyes are deep and mesmerising, yes, but they contain no magic.

Only encouragement and love as his strong arms hold her flush to his warm body.

Humanity makes you weak.

But she feels safe. She feels safe in his arms.

And he feels it, when the switch slips.

She slumps, dry wracking sobs convulsing her body as she looks on at the corpse.

"Oh my – she was – "

"Caroline," he says, then firmer because she's too distraught to listen. "Caroline!"

She looks up and her familiar eyes are filled with tears. He knows what must be done.

She'll hate him.

She'll be more repulsed than she ever was by him.

"Caroline," he repeats, his pupils dilating. "You didn't kill Hayley. I did. She tried to attack you and I snapped her neck."

There is no coming back from this.

Humans lose their compelled memories when they become vampires, but vampires… they never realise what is compulsion and what is not.

He's turned over the wolf's body but Caroline will know soon enough that he killed the woman carrying his magical offspring.

If he could he would erase the child. From every person in town's memory, if that was what it took. But he cannot compel his siblings.

She will know.

His name will be a gag in her throat.

But it's worth it.

It is worth it.

* * *

I hope you liked that! I know it didn't end very happily but every now and then I personally like a slightly depressing open-ending so I decided to do one.

That said, I deliberately did many things to indicate hope. Caroline didn't tell Klaus all that stuff for nothing. He finally knows how she _really _feels now. Also Klaus compels Caroline to believe that he killed Hayley saving her. In a few hundred years maybe that could allow her to forgive him? Or way sooner, it's up to your imagination!

Because, nope, I cannot write a continuation for this I'm sooooo sorry. I simply don't have the time. I have to finish my other story and then write a sequel all while keeping up with my studies.

But please let me know if you liked it, what you didn't like, and maybe how you envision them getting together after this?

P.S. Signal boost for Tumblr's Klaroline Vision Wednesday and the Klaroline Buttons Project! PM me if you don't know about either of these.


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